SOURCE: "Leontes' Contrition and the Repair of Nature," in Essays and Studies, Vol. 31, 1978, pp. 36-64.

In the following essay, Fowler discusses the allegorical relations in The Winter's Tale, maintaining that the pastoral scenes symbolically reveal Leontes ' transition from sin to repentance.

The Winter's Tale and Measure for Measure fall each into distinct sections written in different fictive modes. In Measure for Measure, the early, potentially tragic scenes of naturalism have been contrasted with the subsequent allegorical black comedy, which is supposed to show a 'falling off'. In The Winter's Tale, the contrast between the first three acts (again largely naturalistic) and the pastoral-comical continuation is too sharp, and the writing too good, to seem anything but intentional. Still, the marvels and unconvincing deaths have been regretted. And Rosalie Colie, doing what she could for a 'conspicuously ill-made' play,¹ has presented it as an extreme generic experiment: an...